The Old Testament: Was Israel Commanded to Commit Genocide?

Have you ever been in a discussion with a skeptic about God and morality? Perhaps you've admirably made the case that God's good character is the basis for human dignity and worth. Maybe you've shown how objective moral values and duties can't be explained naturalistically. Then someone takes the wind out of your sails by asking, "Well, if God is so good, why would He command Israel to engage in ethnic cleansing and genocidal warfare against the Canaanites? After all, doesn't Deuteronomy 20:16-17 plainly state this? 'Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them…as the Lord your God has commanded you.'"¹ No matter how strongly the believer makes the case for the God-morality connection, this good argument can become overshadowed by the Canaanite question.

So what do we do? By all means, stick with the argument of how God's existence makes better sense of a moral world in which intrinsically valuable persons exist! Yet we should be prepared to address this "genocide" question, which has gotten a lot more press since 9/11. "Religious radicalism" has emboldened New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who attack "the God of the Old Testament." In our own experience, the Canaanite question is emerging with increasing frequency, and we will point out key response points.

First, we should avoid using the misleading statement "taking the Bible literally." We don't (and shouldn't) always take it literally. We should always take it literarily. That is, we should treat the Bible's types of literature (genres)--poetry, historical narrative, apocalypse, prophecy, parable--as they were intended to be interpreted. We can't apply a one size-fits-all approach to each of them. This is particularly important for interpreting the Old Testament's war texts properly--in their ancient Near Eastern setting.

Second, the sweeping language of these warfare texts such as Joshua (as well as Numbers 31 and 1 Samuel 15) occurs in highly figurative, hyperbolic accounts--quite common in the ancient Near East. This kind of "utterly destroyed" bravado was common in ancient Near Eastern war texts. Biblical scholars and archaeologists (e.g., K. Lawson Younger, Kenneth Kitchen) have recognized the pervasive use of hyperbolic language--"boasting" about "total destruction"--in ancient Near Eastern warfare literature. Victories were often described hyperbolically in terms of total conquest, complete annihilation, and destruction of the enemy, killing everyone and leaving no survivors. One Moabite king wrote of his defeat of Israel, "Israel is no more." The knowing ancient Near Eastern reader recognized that this was massive hyperbole, and the accounts were not understood to be literally true. This language was like a basketball team saying of their opponents, "We totally slaughtered them!"

Third, the contrast between "utterly destroying" and leaving ample survivors is fairly obvious. In the biblical canon, Joshua is connected not only to Judges 1-2 (where lots of Canaanite survivors remain alive after Joshua "left no survivors"!), but also to Numbers and Deuteronomy. And Judges reveals that this widespread killing never literally happened, since there were swarms of Canaanites remaining. Even within Joshua we read, "There were no Anakim left in the land" (11:22); they were "utterly destroyed" in the hill country (11:21). Yet later in Joshua, Caleb asked permission to drive out the Anakites from the hill country (14:12-15; cf. 15:13-19). Joshua's military campaign in Canaan simply wasn't a territorial conquest, but a series of disabling raids.

In Numbers 31 (after Midianite women had intentionally seduced the men of Israel), we're told, "[Israel] fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man" (NIV, emphasis added). If literally true, why do we see Midianite multitudes in Judges 6:5? They were "like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels" (6:5 NIV). Also, the language is exaggerated in that every Midianite man was killed without a single Israelite fatality (Num. 31:50).

In 1 Samuel 15, Saul was commanded to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites. Stereotypical sweeping language was used: "Put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey" (15:3). On a literal reading, Saul carried this out--except for King Agag, who would meet his doom through the prophet Samuel (vv.7-9, 33). Yet this didn't literally happen; the Amalekites were far from destroyed.

Exaggerated language is abundant. For instance, Saul's army was numbered at 210,000--far larger than any army of antiquity. This was common in ancient Near Eastern war texts. In 1 Samuel 27:8-9, the same sweeping language of Chapter 15 is used: all Amalekites were wiped out--again! We're told David invaded a territory full of Amalekites--the same territory covered by Saul. (Shur is near Egypt and Havilah is in Saudi Arabia--an area far too wide for Saul's army to cover.) So, 1 Samuel 15 and 27 cannot both be literally true. What's more, in 1 Samuel 30, a large Amalekite army attacked Ziklag (v. 1), and David pursued this army and fought a long battle with them, with four hundred Amalekites fleeing (1 Sam. 30:7-17). That's not all: the Amalekites were even around during the reign of Hezekiah (1 Chron. 4:43).

So here's the question: Why is it that virtually every time a narration of "genocide" occurs, it is followed by an account that presupposes it did not happen? Scripture took shape, and the Old Testament canon was formed. The final compiler or editor--who was certainly not mindless--saw no problem with side-by-side affirmations of "total destruction" and many surviving hostiles. He didn't assume both to be literally true.

Fourth, the dominant language of "driving out" and "thrusting out" the Canaanites indicates further that "extermination" passages are hyperbolic (cf. Exod. 23:28; Lev. 18:24; Num. 33:52: Deut. 6:19; 7:1; 9:4; 18:12; Josh. 10:28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39; 11:11, 14). Israel was to "dispossess" the Canaanites of their land (Num. 21:32; Deut. 9:1; 11:23; 18:14; 19:1). Just as Adam and Eve were "driven out" of the garden (Gen. 3:24), or Cain into the wilderness (4:14), or David from Israel by Saul (1 Sam. 26:19), so the Israelites were to "dispos- sess" the Canaanites. "Driving out" or "dispossessing" is different from "wiping out" or "destroying." Clearly, utter annihilation was not intended; you can't both drive out and destroy.

Fifth, the biblical language of the Canaanite "destruction" is identical to that of Judah's destruction in the Babylonian exile--clearly not utter annihilation or even genocide. Indeed, God threatened to "vomit" out Israel from the land just as he had vomited out the Canaanites (Lev. 18:25, 28; 20:22). In the Babylonian invasion of Judah (sixth-century BC), God threatened to "lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there" (Jer. 9:11 NIV). Indeed, God said, "I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin" (Jer. 25:9 NIV). God "threatened to stretch out My hand against you and destroy you" (Jer. 15:6; cf. Ezek. 5:16)--to bring "disaster" against Judah (Jer. 6:19). The biblical text, supported by archaeological discovery, suggests that while Judah's political and religious structures were ruined and that Judahites died in the conflict, the urban elite were deported to Babylon while many "poor of the land" remained behind to inhabit the towns of Judah. Clearly, Judah's being "completely destroyed" and made an "everlasting ruin" (Jer. 25:9) was a significant literary exaggeration--which reinforces our point about the Canaanite "destruction."

Sixth, "Joshua obeyed all that Moses commanded" (Josh. 9:24; 11:12), and yet Joshua left many survivors. It only follows, then, that in Deuteronomy 20 Moses did not literally intend for no survivors to be left.

Why should the critic take the passage in Deuteronomy literally but not the passages in Joshua? If he took the latter literally it would be easier for him to see that in context the former is using hyperbole and should not be taken literally.

I think the flood was primarily to get rid of the Nephillum. Also, I believe that God gave the sinful people living in the Promised Land something like 400 years to get straight with God. (And the Hebrews living in Egypt). And of course, by NOT following God’s commands, and not wiping them out, the Hebrews became corrupted by the survivors and worshiped the pagan idols. And then God punished, and corrected them of that during their exile in Babylon - with Israel and the temple completely destroyed.

My wife read through the entire Bible one year. The pastor asked her what she thought of the O.T. “The thing that kept coming back - was that He is a God of love.”

The pastor was surprised. “Yes - but most people don’t get that.”

But time and time again God gave the people second and third and fourth and .... chances. And the entire time God was foreshadowing sending His son Jesus.

I wonder if this same author things that God is a child abuser? (You know - having His own son whipped and then put to death. I DID read an article where the author laid it all out in that manner!)

Seventh: Cultures can attain a level of sinfulness that requires God to judge them so severely that they are wiped out.

The mistake I made, and I think a lot of people make, is that we can think of God as an infinitely bigger one of us. God is categorically different from us, since He is the Author of Creation and every life. God gives life and He can take it away. We don't have the same rights that he does.

RE: OK to believe Sodom and Gomorrah, but not this?

I think what liberals have a hard time with his NOT that God would act on His own to destroy a city and its inhabitants.

It is that God, who commanded people not to kill, would use His own chosen people to actually do the mass killing.

Killing is a very ugly thing ( an understatement ) to do and affects not only the one who is killed, but the killer’s own soul as well.

THAT is what disturbs people when they read about it.

I think what people have a hard time with his NOT that God would act on His own to destroy a city and its inhabitants (e.g. Sodom and Gomorah).

It is that God, who commanded people not to kill, would use His own chosen people to actually do the mass killing.

Killing is a very ugly thing ( an understatement ) to do and affects not only the one who is killed, but the killerâ€™s own soul as well.

THAT is what disturbs people when they read about it.

I think what people who take this literally have a hard time with his NOT that God would act on His own to destroy a city and its inhabitants. He obviously has the authority to take ANY life, since He is the giver of it.

It is that God, who commanded people not to kill, would use His own chosen people to actually commit the mass killing.

Killing is a very ugly thing ( an understatement ) to do and affects not only the one who is killed, but the killer’s own soul as well. One can never be the same when one kills another human being ( much less many human beings ).

THAT is what disturbs people when they read about it.

THAT is what disturbs people when they read about it.

What disturbs them is what they see as inconsistency. They are trying to answer strawman arguments against the Bible, by watering it down themselves.

Many have been taught to believe the "Old Testament" is the old way, and the "New Testament" is the new way. A big problem with that thinking is that it applies a "theological" mindset to what they read. In other words, they start making exceptions and excuses. The heretic Marcion was not the first, but perhaps the most famous to come up with this kind of nonsense. He hated Jews, so he came up with a theology that treated the "Old Testament" as a metaphor, and eventually concluded that the god of that portion was different than the god of the "New Testament."

Read Revelation 19-20 and tell me that the figurative language used conveys anything other than a literal obliteration of evil men by the Messiah Himself.

It is clear and unmistakable: Israel was commanded by the righteous King of the Universe to completely and utterly kill men, women, and children of those kingdoms living in Canaan. Not just once, but multiple times. To apply some sort of misguided theological answer to that question is an invitation to moral relativism. You've heard it: "Homosexuality was forbidden only because in the culture of that day a high value was placed on having children - so it isn't wrong today because we don't have that issue."

Bottom line: never mistake figures of speech (as you mentioned), or types, as an invitation to read Scripture as figurative. The Bible is a clear, literal expression of the Almighty's will. Period.

Many peoples of the prejudeo christian world in europe asia the pacific islands and the americas at one time practiced human sacrifice of one type or another. The ones that did it on an industrial scale in the americas and the middle east also had homosexuality in the priesthood.

in the pre judeo christian world when someone wanted to f-uck the state —they went to the temple prostitute—who could be male or female.

You’ll want to read a book called the conquest of new spain by bernal diaz. he was cortez’s lietenant. he chronicles the human sacrifice and homosexuality that cortez and his men encountered in central America and the Caribbean.

Cortes’s reaction was much the same as that of Moses and Joshua.

It is generally thought in christian circles that the sudden power of homosexuals in recent decades is due to roe v wade. that abortion is the human sacrifice sacrament that sustains the power of homosexuals in the culture since homosexuality and abortion operate in the same liberal moral universe—and not till after roe v wade did the homosexuals suddenly rise in power.

reverse roe v wade and the power of the homosexuals will go into decline.

in the meantime meantime its generally thought among american evangelicals that America has entered into a period generally akin to the evil period of the old testatment. that would be the book of judges.

that would be the one with the sing song. every man did what was right in his own eyes. they all did evil in the sight of the Lord.

the reason for democrat advocacy of all manner of abomination is to make people unable to control themselves. they lose the power of self government and so power and money shifts to the government where the government party—generally but not always the democrats— makes their living.

it was bernal diaz “conquest of new spain” that converted me to christianity. Why? Because there was no contact between the old world and the new world.Yet the new world people had the same nasty habits as the old world people of the bible.

that meant that the bad behavior grew out of something genetic. that the biblical contention that people are NATURALLY bad to the bone is forensically correct.

that only divine intervention can save a person or a people from destruction

Fascinating. I’m listening to a set of recorded lectures on “The Conquest of the Americas,” and Bernal Diaz is one of the sources most often mentioned. I probably read at least some of it in the course of ten years of Spanish classes, but that was a long time ago.

When I was teaching a religion class on Tuesday, I gave a quick summary of events in Joshua-through-Kings, and told the class that this is what people are like: lust, murder, betrayal, conquest. Then I asked the class, many of whom are from Mexico, if they knew about the Mayas. Some did, so I told them about the recent (since I was in college) translation of the Mayan glyphs, and how their inscriptions revealed a history of lust, murder, betrayal, and conquest. “This is what people are like, and only Christ can change them.”

I took a cruise last winter and visited some mayan ruins in beliz. according to the people there most of what is jungle now was at one time part of a vast metropolis among the maya. the temples that have been excavated are only the tip of the iceberg.

the tour guide explained the various blood sacrifices the mayans did. they would usually pierce themselves. but when times where tough they went on to human sacrifice.

if you google climate changes in the 800’s ad or about the time of the collapse of the maya—you’ll notice that there was a terrible drought in central america.

similarly with the collapse of the mocha in peru about 600 AD. there was a terrible el nino that caused rains to come perpetually. archaeologists have found highly decorated skeletons with bashed in skulls at the tops of the temples. Apparently, the priests sacrificed much of the elites in a vain effort to appease the gods and stop the rains.

I asked my mayan tour guide if she was a christian. she said yes but the wide eyed look in her eyes said it all.

If you know what came before , then you know that Christianity offers a very good deal.

btw, if you want to understand the mind of the precolumbians and the caananites—a good book to read is Julian Jaynes “the origin of conciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.

The first 50 pages are very dense but they will give you some deep insights into the way your mind works. After page 50 or so the book opens out on the ancient world of the 3rd and 2nd millium bc. and then it goes to the transitional world of the 1st millenium bc and on to the new world that the spanish encountered.

Its fascinating.

The last part of the book breaks down because of Jaynes unitarian leaning. that is since he takes the low of christ—that means that words are invention and not something discovered like the mathematical laws to which math refers.

that means in Jaynes view words have no connection to the universe. they are just things that rattle around in the head. which in effect makes Jaynes very much like the pagans he describes.

A christian views Jesus as the word made flesh. God writing himself into human history—very much top down as well as bottoms up. that is Jesus is both fully God and fully Man. On that tension hinges western civilization.

http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/pdfs/Julian_Jaynes_The_Origin_of_Consciousness.pdf

If you google it —you can also find free online copies of Bernal Diaz book too.

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